On Ice
by Unfoldeed
Summary: The Mandalorian has cut his ties with Ranzar and his bloodthirsty gang, and finds himself friendless, stranded on an unwelcoming planet. His circumstances quickly spiral from bad to worse. (Pre-canon)
1. Chapter 1

Din flicked a coin into the dirt for each of them. One – Ranzar. Two – Qin.

He paused, sighed, held the third coin to the level of his eye. Wondered if Xi'an deserved it, if forgetting her warranted the waste.

Three. One last coin struck the ground.

Din looked down at them. Tarnished and dirty, soon to be left behind. The falling out had been inevitable, he guessed. Ranzar had sided consistently with the Twi'leks, and every tense silence, every tedious disagreement had multiplied with each mission. Only a matter of time, Din thought, shaking his head, until they….

He turned away from the coins. That was the point of them: he wanted to turn away. Forget them. He had given each of them one final thought, so that he wouldn't have to think anymore. He would refuse to.

Before him sprawled an open market, exposed to cold, whipping wind and slate clouds that hung lower than any Din had seen. Every stall and alley blazed with red-hot space heaters, which the swaddled locals made a habit of crowding as they traded their valuables.

Din approached, tugging his cape close to his sides. He needed transport back to the nearest Mandalorian outpost. Preferably one within the Outer Rim, so that the trip might not cost him a fortune. With no ship of his own, and no contacts on this foreign world, the trip might be costly regardless.

Din's steps slowed, stopped. Cringing, he turned back to snatch up the coins. It wouldn't do to wind up just a few short of escape, he decided. So he stuffed them into his pocket with another sigh, and continued on his way.

The sky seemed to darken. Din wondered what time of day it was. He doubted that night was any warmer than…now.

The Mandalorian resolved to hurry. With no money to spare on a room for the night, and no guarantee that the markets would stay open, his time was limited.

His search left him in an empty lot behind a ramshackle inn. He counted his coins, wondering if he could bear the cold. The shuttle station, he had been told, was a day's walk away, and the land ferries were out of commission due to fuel shortages; anyone with hangar space or tickets to sell was out there. Din had been advised against walking to the station overnight – repeatedly, seemingly with worse warnings each time. Ice storms, crevasses, creatures in the dark….

Din rolled his eyes. He hated the fearmongering that festered in backwater towns. Hated that, for his own sake, he would have to assume they were right. No use dying on the same day that he found his freedom. _Moving on was preferable to passing on_. He huffed, almost a laugh.

A warm light speared the dark ground, as the inn's back door swung ajar. A human in only a couple layers of leather stepped out, looking at Din.

"Someone told me you were looking for the quickest way offworld," he called, cocking blaster-laden hips. "Come on in. We got you a room."

"Liddec. And you?"

"I'm a Mandalorian."

"I know that. What I meant was…never mind."

Liddec and his friends – a small gang of human travelers – had gathered with Din in the common area of the inn. The ceiling was low, the furniture minimal, but a few heaters generated comfortable warmth. Din had pulled his hands between his knees as some feeling finally returned to them.

"In any case," Liddec said, "You need transport, and we could use an extra gun onboard. Not to _fight_ anything. Hopefully, you know." He took a drink of something frothy and sweet-smelling, then wiped a few drops from his stubbled face.

"So maybe we could call it even. We'll drop you off somewhere more civilized, and it'd be free of charge."

"You say you aren't looking for trouble," Din said. "What are the chances of trouble finding us?"

Liddec glanced sideways, then back at Din. "One in fifty, let's say. Life on the Outer Rim always has its nasty run-ins, but my boys and I are good at keeping our noses clean. No serious enemies to speak of. You still in?"

Din nodded. "When do we leave?"

"Morning. My friend here scrounged enough fuel to get one of the ferries going. We'll use it to get back where our pilot's waiting. Sleep in the meantime. Room's on us, as I said."

The Mandalorian took his leave up a narrow staircase tucked into the corner. Walking through the only open doorway at the top, he entered a room that would typically pass for a large closet. Not on this miserable planet, he supposed. Finding a place for all of his gear would be an interesting challenge. He made it work by lining up his weapons along the windowless far wall, and stacking his armor plates under the bed. At least the pillow allowed his helmeted head some cushioning, he noted, as he made himself comfortable. A small heater puffed away in the corner by the door. Din focused on it as his eyes began to close, matching his breaths with its slow thrums of energy.

He could almost forget the events that brought him here…..

Half asleep, he barely overheard two angry voices outside.

"The Zygerrian wants him cuffed now, not later."

"That wasn't the decision last time." Liddec.

"It's been re-decided."

Din was already under the bed, strapping on his armor and readying a blaster.

Notes:

-i update quickly, expect action soon  
-also my only experiences with star wars media are kotor and the mandalorian. so i'm having to practically live on wookiepedia in order to write decent background details


	2. Chapter 2

_Slavers_, Din thought. Practically a cliché on the Outer Rim. Other Mandalorians had warned him about overfriendly travelers. About too-sweet favors, or offers of easy work, in a galaxy still plagued by the slave trade. Din hadn't remembered those warnings, and the Mandalorians that gave them weren't here to help him now. So he would fight for himself – correct his error. No other option existed, besides a firsthand introduction to slavery.

He counted the footsteps as they ascended the stairs. Two pairs, two steps at a time. Liddec and his impatient friend had arrived at Din's door. As it was slid open, he trained his pistol on the opening.

"Where did he-"

"This doesn't seem like the right room." Though low-voiced and authoritative, Liddec's friend sounded unmistakably feminine.

"But look. Those are the weapons he came in with," Liddec said.

"Then where-"

Din interrupted their conversation with a shot from his blaster. He heard Liddec scream and drop, clutching a smoldering wound in his shin. The Mandalorian lunged upright, taking the entire bedframe with him. It was thrown forward at Liddec's friend, who punched a blaster shot of her own through the material. Din felt the molten shot pass a finger's width from his shoulder.

The heater followed the bed, as Din hurled it through the doorway. It smashed on the floor with a burst and whoosh of flames, and both enemies recoiled toward the stairs. The woman clutched her cloth mask close across her nose, green eyes blazing.

Din lunged out after them and fired again, flare-red rounds glancing off an impressive set of armor. Liddec had been unprepared for a firefight, but his friend – another human clad in heavy plates – stood unfazed by Din's attacks. The armored figure drew a stun baton and struck. Din ducked under the enemy's path and rose with a kick square to her chest. She tumbled down the stairs, and her blaster clattered away.

Shouts and footsteps sounded downstairs. Din heaved a breath, preparing to take on the entire gang. He seized Liddec by the scruff of his jacket, hoisting him at gunpoint.

Liddec's friend had found her footing, hunched at the end of the staircase. The other men had assembled around her, brandishing weapons of their own.

"Bring the ferry," Din demanded. "Or Liddec gets it."

"You think we'll just let you walk out here?" One of the men bellowed.

"Your friend's life depends on it."

The slavers hesitated, glancing among themselves. None of them had lowered their weapons.

"You want to see him dead?" Din threatened, pressing the blaster close to Liddec's temple.

One of the slavers raised a gun. Not a blaster, something sleeker and small. Din felt a needle hit his neck, followed by a current that seized every muscle and nerve. Shaking, he sensed his grip on Liddec tightening. His grip on the blaster tightened too. He watched the trigger compress, helpless to move the blaster off-target, to relax his finger against pulses of electricity. Liddec screamed, thrashed against a body that refused to budge.

Din fired. Liddec's exposed head was reduced to paste. Gasping a constricted breath, Din collapsed stiffly onto his back.

The slavers raced upstairs, cuffing his wrists. Din's blaster was ripped from his hand.

"Leave the body," the woman ordered. "We take him to the ship. _Now_."

A boot cracked against Din's head, blanking his consciousness.

He awoke to the creaking and rumbling of the ice ferry, smelling the fumes of industrial fuel. Cleated treads carried him and his captors over a wide expanse of ice and dirt.

Din looked around. He was sitting in the back of the ferry. It was lined with port windows and bristling with armed slavers. A single bulb swung from the ceiling, barely lighting the chamber.

Most of the slavers were silent, picking over Din's weapons, though a few, including the woman, chatted by the driver's seat.

"Come on, Vee. You think it could've been done some other way?"

"It doesn't matter, Rokin," the woman answered, wiping a few scuffs from her armor. "Liddec was green, and now he won't be taking a share of the credits."

"But Liddec negotiated the rate. Plus the Zygerrian seemed to like him," Rokin said.

"Favoritism annoys me. We're better off with him dead."

"I just hope it's worth it," a third interjected. "The armor's expensive, isn't it?"

"All of theirs is. And the weapons alone will set us up nicely."

A laugh from the third. "And here we thought we'd be stuck here for weeks plucking farm girls from their beds."

As the slavers talked, Din took stock of his condition. The dart in his neck was gone, and with it the stinging electric current that had paralyzed him. But he was still shackled, and his guns were out of reach, in the hands of his enemies, no less.

Din's eyes raced over his limbs. Even the blade strapped to his leg had been removed. Only his vambraces remained….

So the slavers had been careless. Too careless to recognize a pair of flamethrowers tucked into the plating.

"Hey, is he awake?"

Din smacked the vambraces together, and set fire to the ferry's interior. Chaos erupted, as some of the slavers dove through the portholes. Vee snatched Rokin's arms and took cover behind him, and another man ducked under the driver's seat. Everyone else succumbed to the flames.

The cone of fire dimmed at first, then flickered. Din jerked to the side as Vee took her chance to aim and shoot. He charged her, driving his boot against Rokin's charred corpse to knock her back. Her aim faltered as a second shot pierced the roof.

"Fire!" Vee yelled. "Hit him, you-!"

"We can't kill him!" A yell from the driver's seat.

Din grappled with Vee's weapon arm. He pressed down with his boots, trying to work the blaster free with his cuffed hands. The woman squirmed away, pulling back to fire again. Din felt a hot bolt of energy pierce his side.

"Wait!"

Din looked over to see the driver aiming another dart. He dove forward, evading the shot. Vee was upright, training her blaster, and Din rolled on his back, kicking out to knock her feet from under her. Righting himself, the Mandalorian rushed the driver's seat, bashing the slaver's head against the wall. A dart misfired into the windshield, and its user was out cold.

Noise behind him, movement. The slavers who had leaped out the portholes were crawling back in. Din pushed the engine into overdrive. Its rumbling ascended into a scream, and smoke filled the interior. He seized the wheel, and then….

Vee shot again, and Din felt his leg buckle. The wheel was jerked sideways. The ferry rocked, groaning, and in spite of everything, the slavers outside held on. Din looked down. Dark blood raced from a fresh wound in the back of his knee. On pure adrenaline, he turned, slamming his shackled hands against Vee's head. Her covered face rebounded on the windshield. Din kicked, and she fumbled her blaster. He leaped for it, stumbling as his injured leg dragged.

Just as his fingers touched the handle, the ferry centerpunched a clifface of ice and rock, smashing into a hundred pieces.

Notes:

-codeine dreaming on loop got me through this chapter

-apparently electro-darts are a thing in the star wars universe? so i used that here

-feel free to comment your thoughts or predictions!


	3. Chapter 3

Din woke to something hot on his leg. He twisted, eyes blinking open to brilliant fire.

His pants were burning. He moved to swat the damaged patch around his ankle. Pieces of windshield, dirt and metal cascaded from his clothes as he flailed. He felt drunk, smacking the flames with unsteady, leaden strokes of his hand. His head rang, spinning.

The fire was patted down into smoke. Din squirmed away from the burning puddle of fuel that caused it. Pain spiked in his knee, which he grabbed with a start. His glove came away coated in blood.

Din's head wheeled around. The back end of the ferry sat smoldering amid the wreckage of its other half. Bodies sprawled in the dirt, some torn apart beyond recognition. Din searched for his weapons, but saw only burnt slices of twisted metal, nothing resembling a gun.

He grit his teeth against both pain and frustration. If any of his weapons had been destroyed….

Distant movement shifted his attention. A large building, likely a hangar, loomed on the horizon, almost invisible against the early morning sky. A few humanoid figures walked out from it, facing the wreck. Din couldn't distinguish any features at this distance – whether one or more among them might be the Zygerrian – but he could easily imagine it. Had to assume it, if he wanted to be smart.

Flopping forward on his hands and knees, he attempted to stand. His head roared with a catalog of pains and discomforts. He worked to unbend his shot knee, but it stung and buckled again.

Crawling, then – for the moment – Din pawed through pieces of the ferry. Chunks of tread, porthole frames. Each time he tipped away another chunk, he hoped to see his rifle, his blade, even one of the slavers' blasters. His hands found only char and dirt, and a scorched, severed arm that might have been Rokin's.

Din peered around the wreckage. The figures had broken into a run.

Din's side was burning. He felt for the blaster wound, but as he reached across his body, he brushed something. Shrapnel – protruding from his suit, just beneath the chestplate – slick with blood and buried who knows how deep. It resembled a sheared piece of steering wheel….

_No time,_ Din realized. _No time to guess at injures._ Slavers approached. Probably slavers, didn't matter. He wouldn't know and couldn't afford to find out. Without weapons to fend them off, staying would only open him to capture. Capture was not the way.

So he would _move_. Every crawling stagger and scrape of boot on dirt demanded effort, but he quickened. Heavy limbs forced themselves forward. The pain flared, and he assumed that standing couldn't feel any worse. He was wrong, and his legs shook under his armored weight, but with both hands feeling along the clifface, he kept from collapsing. His breath came loud and harsh.

Din looked back in time to see something dark lurch up from under the mangled ferry door. A second later it was on him, sending them both to the ground. He yelled, as did the woman who tackled him. Vee. Her elbow cracked across his helmet. He reached up, finding her neck, rolling to pin her.

Foreign fingers seized the shrapnel in his stomach, pushing. Din swiped the hand away and snarled. He brought down his fist in the first precise motion since the crash, smashing Vee's nose and jarring her head against the ground. She stilled with her eyes wide open, unseeing.

Din searched her for weapons. Still nothing. He struggled upright. Blood dripped from his leg, trickled from his stomach. The figures were closer, and the charcoal sky had brightened with the diffused light of dawn. They would see him, pursue him. Din refused to be caught. He traced the cliff. Further down, it gave way into a hill. Climbable. If he could summit it, Din thought, he could break the line of sight, find a way to hide.

He looked back again. Blood trailed behind him. It had to stop, or they would track him. Din's head spun.

Too many problems. Too many….

He stumbled, then doubled over on the ground. He regretted the noise that followed a blinding pain in his stomach. Through shame or frustration or some mixture of the two, he forced himself up again, staring distantly skyward. Had those dark clouds been there before?

_Good_, he thought. Dark enough and maybe he could lose those running figures. Din finally found a rhythm that his legs didn't hate. It was uneven and awkward, but not quite painful enough to force another collapse. The cliff sloped, rounded off. Climbing would be worse – that was an easy assumption – but Din would make himself do it.

A distant hiss, like rushing water, filtered into his helmet. Louder and louder, each piece of it like a breath or a whistle, followed by tapping – tiny strikes – closing in from somewhere far away.

Din's gaze returned to the heavy clouds. Rain. No, ice. Shards of it cascaded from the sky, filling the air. They struck down with brutal force, smashing on the ground, splintering against Din's armor-plated body. Only then did he realize their shape, some jagged and pointed, many longer than his hand.

Din looked out at the spot where he'd seen the hangar. No trace, only _ice_, all-consuming as it pummeled the ground.

Pieces of it jabbed the spaces between Din's armor, pulling holes in his suit, tearing runs. It would be tattered – and his skin after it – unless Din found the strength to stagger back to cover. Turning _hurt_, and Din clutched his bleeding body with a groan, but he began scrambling back to the wreck without a second's pause. He couldn't see it, but he could feel along the cliff.

The chunks of ice seemed to double in size as he walked, pounding his back and his helmet. How was anyone supposed to survive a storm that could arrive in an instant and send frozen projectiles thicker than your arm straight down at you?

The ice downed him; one massive chunk sent his helmet bouncing off the dirt. His ears screamed. Din wasn't sure if he was groaning out loud or only in his head.

Something that wasn't ice touched his back. Din was rolled, then snatched up by a too-large body, pressed into unfamiliar warmth. He felt himself carried upward. Fast. Terribly fast.

Up what? The cliff?

The speed and sudden altitude made him dizzy. Din's head lolled, and his eyes shut.

Author's Note:

-has ice rain been done before in the star wars universe? probably but i haven't seen it

-the setup's pretty much complete. we have the slavers, din, and whatever the hell just picked him up. as for how these elements play out, stay tuned!

-comments are appreciated. thank you to the two guests who left reviews! gimme your newest hottakes if you like


	4. Chapter 4

-i wanted to make a note about the last chapter. someone mentioned in a review that they thought din's helmet had been knocked off. i actually meant that his helmet had hit the ground with his head still in it, haha

Din thought he could feel her hand on his neck, rubbing deft circles through the fabric of his cape.

"Xi'an." For someone so violent, the Twi'lek was an oddly talented masseuse – a little-known fact that few in the galaxy might ever discover.

Was she laughing? She always seemed to laugh at her name in his voice. He could picture her now, chuckling away from somewhere behind him.

"I missed you," Din said. The words had spilled out before any half-conscious thought could filter them. He shook his head, trying to clear old memories, old sensations.

_No you don't,_ he told himself. _You don't miss her. Not after what had…._

What had happened? Din couldn't remember what drove them apart, and wasn't sure if he wanted to. Xi'an was her familiar self in this moment, squeezing his gloved hands in her own.

"You're cold, Mando. Ever try taking care of yourself?"

Something warm and heavy was wrapped over him. Din sighed and felt himself relax. He did miss her, missed when they could get along, share moments that didn't involve bickering or violence. Did she miss him too?

When Din returned to his senses, he saw only the mouth of a cave, heard only the hail of ice chunks as they poured outside. He realized that he had been dreaming, and felt hollow, bitter even, in reminding himself that Xi'an and their friends were gone, separated from him; that running off without them had been his sole option, and coming back would more likely lead to a knife in his neck than warm blankets and gentle massages.

Din felt stupid for even dreaming about her. She had been nothing but trouble for him, and it was impossible for her to help him now – not that she would have wanted to.

He looked around, though even this simple action was painful. He was lying on his side, facing the opening, and was covered in a layer of matted grass, or moss, gray and rotting, but at least dry. Under his helmeted head sat his cape. It had been rolled up into something like a pillow.

Din jolted as the thought finally hit him: something _put_ him here, _arranged_ him like a toy doll, then left him. He had never seen this place before, this miserable little cave tucked away from the dark clouds and the ice storms. Questions rattled in his head. How far from the slavers had he been taken? Would they know where he'd gone? Was it safe here?

Maybe not, Din considered, but stepping outside would be worse, with the ice barreling down on every exposed inch of dirt. He pushed onto his back, earning a stab of pain from the blaster wound in his knee. Jerking to grab it only reasserted the damage in his side and stomach. Din stilled for a moment, feeling pathetic. Even breathing felt uncomfortable. He looked down at himself; the clothes and his wounds under them had been left alone, the shrapnel still embedded. Most of the bleeding had seemed to stop with time. Moving might start it again, but Din wanted mobility, and would force it if he had to. Waiting here like a sitting porg would only give the slavers an advantage, should they manage to find him.

The pain ebbed, and he tried to sit up. Shifting onto his elbows was excruciating, but he held his breath, ground his teeth, and managed it. He shuddered as he finally exhaled. Even his vision felt fogged, but he tried to focus on a few pale shapes in the corner of the cave, shapes that might be animal bones, or maybe stormtrooper armor….

A fresh sting sent his hand to the shrapnel wound in his stomach. The metal piece was grinding against something under his skin, threatening to pierce further if he moved again. Din considered tugging it out, wondered if he would survive the blood loss that would follow. He gripped the exposed portion between his thumb and finger, pulling just slightly. The pressure eased. Only a few drops of blood began to pool around the wound.

Din stopped, wincing, and finally sat up. He didn't dare to pull the shrapnel further, not when he was most likely leagues away from the nearest bacta source. Sitting had become bearable. That was the most he could have hoped for.

_Now to stand,_ he thought, though his injured leg seemed to hate the very idea of it. He held off for a moment, looking out at the storm. Ice still pelted the planet, but the general noise didn't seem as loud as before, so maybe it would let up soon. He wondered if the slavers had turned back when the storm arrived. Maybe now they would try to track him again. Thinking of it made him grab the cave wall and drag himself onto his feet.

The entrance to the cave stood several body-lengths away. Shoulder-against-rock, Din pushed forward. Hot trails of blood began to run down his leg, faster with every step. He paused to look, and swore at the state of his knee. The back of it was reopening further with every step.

Din dropped with his back to the wall. He fidgeted with his pant leg, already scraped and torn from the crash and subsequent ice storm. Tearing a piece long enough to bind the wound might work….

A loud rustle – a breath? – sounded from outside the cave. Din jumped, whirling to spot an enormous figure in the storm.

Reality struck him. No weapons, no cover, no way out. Plus three gruesome injuries that kept him practically immobile. They were forgotten momentarily, as adrenaline seized his muscles and sent him scrambling back from the opening.

The figure – vaguely man-shaped but far too large – lurched into the cave. Sheets of ice were dashed on its hide, and skittered across the cave floor. Silhouetted against the sky, Din could see only a dark, fearsome shape. He heard it breathing, snuffling, gibbering something that defied comprehension.

Din started screaming. No thought preceded the action; he had become a puppet of basic human instinct. Distantly, some piece of consciousness thought _Wampa_, and conjured old stories of republic outposts wiped by savage creatures. But all he could think on actively was a way out, a way _away_….

_Away away away away_

The creature seized him in one massive swipe, and held him still.

Author's Note:

-okay not sure if people besides luke and rey would have any idea what porgs are, but for the sake of funnies i thought it'd make a nice equivalent to the "sitting duck" idiom.

-din isn't really shown to scream his head off during bad situations, but i figure since this story happens over a decade prior to canon events, and he's less experienced, it's not as much of a stretch


	5. Chapter 5

Two large hands were holding him against the ground, one on his shoulder, the other around his leg. The creature crouched over him, not moving, still nothing more than a massive black shape against faint sunlight. Din pried at one of the hands with every ounce of force he could squeeze from his muscles. His whole body twisted against the creature's grip. He could feel the shrapnel grinding into him and didn't care, only twisted further, fought harder, as instinct mingled with conditioning.

Defend oneself. Die resisting, if necessary. _Strength is life_. Din had lost count of the battles that had yielded those lessons. He kicked with his free leg, forgetting the injury on the back of his knee. Still, the thing above him didn't move, didn't sink in claws or fangs or even growl at him, only grumbled softly, and kept him pinned. In some back corner of his spinning mind, Din wondered when it would just open its mouth and bite his head off. Tear his guts out, at least. Yelling, he kicked again, again, sharper every time. His knee stung with the fiercest pain he had known.

Nothing changed – no give, no reaction, no sound besides the strange garbling that had started when it arrived. Din could feel it staring down at him. Its noises began to sound less random. Was that a word in basic…?

No time to care. It could kill him in an instant unless Din fought for survival, as he'd been trained.

Din's yelling and snarling became tarnished by pain. Every strike clearly hurt him much more than the creature. His leg was soaked in his own blood. He slowed. His senses mushed together, overloaded with the agony of struggling for so long.

Barely audible past the thud of his own heartbeat in his ears, Din heard a word.

"…Wait…."

Squinting, he looked at where the creature's mouth might be, tried to sense movement in the dark. Had it spoken? Was he hallucinating?

Two pinpricks of light stood out on its black form. Eyes, which focused on his bleeding leg. Din wondered if it was about to be snapped off.

More gurgling. "No…."

_No?_ Din struggled to understand what it meant. Had it said anything at all?

None of it mattered, he reminded himself. He had to break free, to fight. Had to _focus_ on that. He thrashed again, felt his wounds tear, and only pushed himself harder.

One of the hands moved to his chest, pressing the air from his lungs. Din couldn't breathe, could only fight with every last shred of oxygen he had. The pressure bent his ribs, not quite breaking, not quite leaving room for air.

_So it'll kill me after all…_he thought. And in such a bloodless fashion. Monsters weren't supposed to kill like this. The wampa tore their victims to pieces, gnawed messily on their bones. Why was it…why….

Din's leg stopped kicking, and his eyes drifted shut.

When he woke up, he was lying in the same place, in the same position. Moss covered him and his cape laid under his helmet. Gasping, he scrambled upright.

"NO!"

Din froze at the roar that rattled the cave. There across from him sat the creature. He could see it now, no longer black against the light. Not a wampa – not quite. Yellow, leathery skin, broken by patches of fur, stretched over a man-shaped, wampa-sized body. The unclouded sky revealed its hairless face, frowning and unmistakably human.

"What the _hell_ are you?" Din didn't expect an answer, but sensed that talking would be wiser than moving – not that he had ruled out making a dash for the exit. He glanced toward it for a moment, spotting empty skies and an open field of fallen ice.

The thing gurgled, its too-human mouth twisting in un-human ways. A word of basic bubbled through its throat.

"Stay."

Din didn't move, debated answering. Half-upright, he could feel himself shaking. His head throbbed, likely from the struggle before he'd blacked out, and his injuries stung.

"I don't want to stay. Understand?" His voice was shaking too, and he hated it._ Strength is life._ Enemy or otherwise, this miserable creature would _not_ get the best of his nerves. Even if…it appeared so uncannily human….

Its dark eyes could have easily belonged to a man. One from the colony Din was born on, even.

"Storm," it grated. A pause, as it looked outside and gibbered to itself. "More."

"I don't care. I'm going to leave, and don't try to stop me." Din began pushing onto his feet.

"No!" The creature answered. The Mandalorian stilled, but his mind swam with impulses, mental jabs to resist, to take the chance, to run, to fight again.

The sky was darkening further. Din grimaced under his helmet. Not ice again. Not while he was trapped here with this abomination.

"Blood…" it said. "You." Its human eyes swung about oddly in their sockets, as if smelling the air more than seeing it. They focused eventually on the piece of shrapnel still lodged in Din's stomach.

"I don't understand you," Din said.

"I…." Its head bobbled. What little basic it might have spoken devolved into grumbles.

"You what?"

The answer came surprisingly fast.

"Help."

Against his own judgment, Din had sat with the creature in its cave. Whether exhaustion or fear had motivated him more, he wasn't sure. He preferred the idea that it was exhaustion. Fear was not the way. But catching his breath, particularly after a mess of battles and injuries, was acceptable. Relatively.

The creature was not really "helping" him – just watched him with its dark, eerie eyes. Din could gather that it had been the one to pluck him from the wreck and place him here. As far as the Mandalorian could tell, it was the only living thing in this barren stretch of planet.

Its hands idly clutched at the bits of moss that Din had left behind when he moved. It didn't have any claws, Din noted, only stubbed nails that, again, looked far too human for a creature so large and horrifying.

Its humanness almost made Din fear it more.

"What are you?" He tried again. It seemed to listen this time, raising its eyes from Din's injured side to his helmet.

"Made," it burbled.

"Made? Like some kind of strandcast?" _Some kind of strandcast gone horribly, horribly wrong,_ he thought.

The creature was mostly silent, not even attempting to make words, as far as he could tell. Outside, the sky churned with fresh clouds. Bits of ice had already begun sprinkling everywhere.

The creature scratched its head. Ground its teeth and tried to speak again.

"…-low."

"What did you say?"

Pointing at the floor of the cave, it tried again.

"I…made…below."

A chill settled in the air, and Din wondered at forces more sinister than slavers.

Author's Note:

-wow, the amount of comments was unexpected! i appreciate each and every one of you, it's not often i get interest (i think that's because i almost exclusively write no-ship fics)

-what is the creature? how was it "made?" why does it want to "help" din? all of these questions are going to be thoroughly answered in later chapters (hopefully to everyone's liking!) but until then i would love to hear your guesses and your thoughts. or just comment whatever you like!

-also making a character that can barely speak without making it annoying or frustrating for the reader is kinda hard, i would not recommend


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